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Golden Tea Leaf’s Dung Ting Oolong – Traditional

Dung Ting Oolong – Traditional by Golden Tea Leaf
Oolong Tea / Straight
$21.99 for 100g

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Golden Tea Leaf has provided me with Dung Ting Oolong – Traditional for the purposes of providing an honest review.

First Impressions

I got a small sample packet of Dung Ting Oolong – Traditional roast from Golden Tea Leaf. There isn’t really anything remarkable about the packaging. I love a good oolong, so I was really looking forward to trying this one from Golden Tea Leaf! The dry leaf is mostly a dark brown with some golden parts to the leaf. There’s an overall nutty aroma with mild vegetal notes. Generally, I find that it reminds me of chestnuts.

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The leaves are rolled tightly. Like with most of my rolled teas, I don’t use a full spoonful because I know that the leaves will expand a lot when I’m steeping the tea.

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Preparation

Golden Tea Leaf recommends steeping Dung Ting Oolong – Traditional at 95°C (203°F) for 2 minutes (initial steep), 2-5 minutes (for all subsequent steeps). My initial steep was for 2 minutes.

First Taste

Dung Ting Oolong steeps to a beautiful golden yellow in a short period of time. There’s a nutty aroma to this tea, with a slight sweetness in the background. When I sip this tea, I note sweet plum flavours as well as some earthy mushroom flavours. I really like the differing flavors, it adds a level of complexity to this tea that’s a pleasure to drink.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Dung Ting Oolong a total of four times, adding an extra 30 second per subsequent steep. I found that the oolong became a darker golden yellow with each steep. The plum flavours become stronger while the earthy flavours start to subside by the second resteep. There’s a mild astringency at the end of each sip that I didn’t find in the initial steep.

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My Overall Impression

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I liked Golden Tea Leaf’s Dung Ting Oolong – Traditional. I found this oolong to be quite enjoyable in it’s initial steep. The plum flavour is delicious, and I really enjoyed the earthiness of the mushroom flavours. For me, the initial steep was more enjoyable than the other steeps of the same leaves because of that astringency I noted with the subsequent steeps.

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InNature Teas’ Alpine Oolong (Jie Guan Yin) Tea

Alpine Oolong (Jie Guan Yin) Tea by InNature Teas
Oolong Tea / Straight
£5.45 for 50g

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InNature Teas has provided me with Alpine Oolong Tea for the purposes of providing an honest review.

First Impressions

Alpine Oolong Tea came to me in a sturdy cardboard box, much like Red Rose Tea did. The tea itself came in a gold foil package, which was not resealable. I remedied this issue by folding the foil package back up and putting it into a sealable plastic bag and into the box. I like keeping teas in original packaging if possible, especially when it’s packaging that’s labelled with information. Alpine Oolong Tea is also known as Jie Guan Yin – you may be more familiar with Iron Goodness or Tie Guan Yin or Tie Kwan Yin.

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Alpine Oolong Tea is a straight oolong tea. The dry leaf has a strong floral aroma to it. The leaves themselves vary from a bright to a dark green, all tightly bunched and rolled together. I’m really looking forward to steeping these tea leaves and seeing how much they expand.

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Preparation

InNature Teas suggests steeping Alpine Oolong Tea in 100°C (212°F) water for 1-2 minutes and suggests that this tea can be steeped up to three times. My initial steep of Alpine Oolong Tea was for 1 minute.

First Taste

The initial step of Alpine Oolong Tea steeps to a pale golden yellow. I found that the aroma to be fairly similar to the dry leaf – mostly floral sweetness. The taste of this tea is surprisingly not as sweet as I expected. There was a smooth floral flavour to this tea, with subtle grassy notes, and a light honeyed sweetness for a finish. There’s a certain level of complexity to this tea that is enjoyable to explore.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Alpine Oolong Tea a total of five times (six steeps total with the same leaves) and the tea did not disappoint. The oolong steeped to a darker golden yellow with each subsequent steep. The flavour gets a bit stronger – the floral becomes more pronounced, but the sweetness in this tea doesn’t get stronger (which is nice).

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Because I did so many steeps of this oolong, I did pour the excess Alpine Oolong Tea into a mason jar that wound up in my fridge. Bonus – this tea is excellent cold/iced as well!

My Overall Impression

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I loved InNature Tea’s Alpine Oolong Tea. I loved the complexity in the flavours and exploring the subtle changes with each steep. I would wholeheartedly recommend resteeping this tea, as the flavours get stronger. This tea would be excellent paired with a meal, I’d think, because it isn’t too sweet to detract from a savoury meal. It’s definitely a tea to resteep over a morning or afternoon, since it holds up so well to being resteeped.

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ShakTea’s White Grape

White Grape by ShakTea
White Tea / Flavoured
$12.50 for 50g

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First Impressions

White Grape was one of my acquisitions at the 2017 Vancouver Tea Festival back in November, and it was one of the teas available to sample at ShakTea’s booth – so I knew I liked it before buying it. White Grape came to me in this small silver tin, the tea was in a plastic package inside of it prior to me opening it (I wound up pouring the dry leaf directly into the tin. This tea has a remarkable aroma – it’s floral, fruity – undeniably grape, with the pleasant fragrance of a light tea. It’s a very inviting aroma that this dry tea has.

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On the packaging, it states that White Grape consists of white tea and grape bits. On the product page (at the time of writing), White Grape consists of: white grape flavour, rose hips, blackcurrant, mallow flavour, cornflower blossoms, and white tea. I’d say the latter is more accurate as I can very clearly see cornflower petals and blackcurrant in the white tea blend.

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Preparation

I didn’t find any preparation recommendations on either the packaging or the website for this tea, so I steeped it at 185°F (85°C) for an initial 2 minutes.

First Taste

White Grape steeps to a very pale yellow. The aroma from the steeped tea is primarily that of sweetness and grapes. When I tasted the tea, I noted that the white tea base has some grassy flavours to it – thankfully smooth and not bitter when steeped for the 2 minutes that I did. Zero astringency was noted with this tea, and I happily continued to drink it. The grape flavour is sweet, and reminds me a lot of purple grapes (and thankfully not raisins) with just a touch of tartness. I found that the aroma of this tea kept me wanting to have more and more of it.

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped White Grape twice. I found for the first resteep, the flavours were still present, although a bit weaker. For the second resteep, the flavours were mostly waned and I was left with the white tea base flavour. To be fair, the grassy notes from the white tea are quite delicious so if you’re a white tea fan, you’ll still be able to enjoy the tea without the grape notes.

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My Overall Impression

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I loved ShakTea’s White Grape. I really enjoyed this white tea when I first sampled it, and I was quite happy that I still liked it when I steeped it at home. I just really enjoyed the mix of sweet and tart with the flavours that were blended in with the white tea, and the grassy notes were pleasant. As it is a white tea, I was quite cautious regarding burning or oversteeping the leaves, and was happy to find that it steeps nicely to a smooth, pleasant tea. I think the fruity flavour would lend itself well to being cold steeped or iced, as well as being paired with sweets.

Curious about the cup rating system? Click here to learn more.